The
date was Nov. 26, 2010 and Alabama had just lost to Auburn in the most painful
way imaginable — at the time. Blowing a 24-point lead, they'd just watched Cam
Newton and Co. celebrate on their field after the 28-27 loss. Auburn would go on to win the national title.

The
room was silent, remembers Gibson, a junior wide receiver at the time.

Three
years later, lightning struck again when a shell-shocked Crimson Tide team sat
in a similar setting Saturday night. Perhaps the most historic end to a college
football game in history left Alabama on the wrong side of a 34-28 loss at
Auburn.

There
are comparisons between the two dark moments in Alabama's recent dominant
streak. Johnson, now with the Kansas City Chiefs, said former teammate C.J.
Mosley told him Saturday's game felt a lot like 2010. The team was "on edge"
and "uptight," just like they were in 2010, Johnson said Mosley told him.

"I'm
not going to lie, in 2010, we felt like we had the game in hand," Johnson said.
"And they showed we didn't. And (Mosley) said the same thing. They felt like
they had the game in control, which sorta they did, but the he said they didn't
finish at all."

But
there are already differences too. Those who were in the Alabama locker room
after Saturday's game say quarterback AJ McCarron gave an inspirational speech
to his stunned teammates.

"It
was a different situation," said Williams, a sophomore tight end at Alabama in
2010 who is on injured reserve with the Detroit Lions. "We knew we had no hopes
of anything (three years ago). I would still stay glued to the TV on Saturday
because you never know what will happen."

Baring
a Michigan State upset over second-ranked Ohio State and a jaw-dropping Duke
win over No. 1 Florida State, Alabama will be playing in a BCS bowl game
without a title on the line. The Auburn loss in 2010 was the Tide's third of
the season as it had been eliminated from championship discussion several weeks
earlier.

The
odds are still very tall in a situation coach Nick Saban foreshadowed on his
radio show before the Nov. 23 game with Chattanooga.

"Do
you have to have something bitter happen for you to change?" Saban said. "And
to be quite honest, that's happened to us in the past and we've been able to
overcome it and it made us a better team. Losing to Texas A&M (last season)
made us a better team. Losing to LSU the year before made us become a better
team. We can't afford that now. We really can't afford that to happen."

But
it did.

And
now they're facing something that team veterans understand. That similar
scenario presented itself not just in 2010, but in 2008 as well.

Alabama
had blown a fourth-quarter lead over Florida in the SEC Championship Game, and
instead of a BCS Championship date, it went to the Sugar Bowl to face Utah.

Utah
put a 31-17 "whipping " on Alabama, as
Williams described it. He said the Tide probably didn't fully respect the
undefeated champions of the Mountain West Conference.

The
leadership from the 2010 team learned lessons from that letdown and applied it
following the Iron Bowl loss.

Gibson
remembers how intense those few weeks were, saying it was like two-a-days all
over again.

"Everybody
is on winter break and you're the only people at school," Williams said. "So
it's not very fun, but for them to be all in our ear about how important that
game was, we knew it was very important."

Gibson
said those are the moments that Saban's famous process is the most effective.
Williams remembers their motivation came from somewhere other than the coach's
office.

"It
really wasn't much of him," Williams said. "It was the leaders on the team that
realized the season had been a letdown, but you have one more game to showcase
what you really have. You have one more game to show the world that this year
was not an Alabama season."

Players such as Dont'a Hightower, Mark Barron, Greg
McElroy and Mark Ingram took charge as Williams remembers it. The idea was to
sever the three-loss season and make the bowl game its own entity.

And
Michigan State paid for it.

The
Tide crushed the Spartans 49-7 in the Capital One Bowl on the first day of
2011. The Big Ten co-champions netted -48 rushing yards and had two
quarterbacks knocked out of the game due to injury.

"Honestly,"
Gibson said, "I hate it for whoever has to play us in a bowl game."

That
Capital One Bowl win was the last game Alabama played without McCarron as the
starting quarterback. He's one who'll carry that message from Hightower,
Barron, McElroy and Ingram to those who weren't in that first somber Iron Bowl
locker room.

Gibson,
a fellow Mobile guy like McCarron, is still close to the quarterback. He knows
the quarterback will have something special left for his final game at Alabama
because "he's like a young coach Saban with his mentality."

And
that's why Gibson isn't worried about what comes next for this team.

"We're
expected to win at the University of Alabama. You don't even think about
losing," he said. "And the thing is, we expect to win, but you never really
think about it on the field ... You never look at the scoreboard.

"But
winners have the mentality that if they fail, they're going to do whatever it
takes to go back and work on the problems. Losers, they have adversity and get
down on themselves and typically lose again."